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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045513">transaction</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bishounen_curious/pseuds/bishounen_curious'>bishounen_curious</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hades (Video Game 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Drowning, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Femdom, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Meg and Zag have a complicated thing going on, Porn with Feelings, Rough Sex, but its hades so death doesn't really mean anything</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:07:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045513</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bishounen_curious/pseuds/bishounen_curious</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Megaera, I’m sorry―”</p>
<p>“Don’t even try,” she barks. Even Zagreus knows his apology isn’t genuine. “Strip.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>transaction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tw for vomiting/emetophobia -- zagreus does vomit at the end of the smut. wanted to give a warning if that's not your thing!</p>
<p>thanks to my good friend for reading this over and giving me feedback!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Megaera is there when Zagreus emerges from the Pool. Most likely, she had been waiting since she herself had resurfaced not long ago after Zagreus had so violently killed her. Her clothes are saturated and dark, clinging to her like molting skin. She snatches Zagreus up without a word before he can digest his most recent, premature death. Like every time, she’s hell-bent on getting her revenge on him: for besting her, for murdering her, for doing so without any remorse. The viscous and bitter taste of the Styx still clings to his teeth as Megaera drags him through the House. </p>
<p>She doesn’t breathe a word as she barrels them through the halls. Nothing as they pass by the owlish glee of Hypnos, his coo of <i>oooooo! someone’s in trouble!</i> whistling everywhere from the stone flooring to the lofty height of the rafters. Silence as they move through the fluid space of an impromptu concert from Orpheus and the fragrant din of a Shade-stuffed lounge. Megaera doesn’t pause for any of it. Zagreus simply acknowledges the confusion from those who lock eyes with him, the gossamer attention from the busybody Shades prickling the back of his neck. It dwindles eventually, like the trail of minute, crimson splatters Zagreus leaves behind. </p>
<p>Briefly, Zagreus wishes he could apologize to Dusa. But, there’s time for that later. Such an ask would have Megaera scoff. <i>You think you deserve that luxury? To own up to those minor mistakes before you address mine? You’re a riot, Zag.</i></p>
<p>She would never let him save face. Especially since the killing blow through the compacted viscera of her gut remains fresh in his muscle memory. The smooth slide of Stygius through her hot bone and glistening, slimy, red flesh. How she recoiled back in an exhale that was so fragile and so unlike her, each cough of blood preventing Megaera from sucking in healing breath.</p>
<p>It felt good. It always feels good to best her at something and bask in that victory as he ascends into the blazes of Asphodel. Zagreus’s throat goes dry as he remembers it all, savoring how he stole yet another one of her endless lives. It’s not his fault that he can’t stop dwelling on how good it feels to fucking kill her. How Zagreus had sucked her blood off his fingers, her taste of iron and salt and something pungent turning the inside of his belly hot. Megaera had watched him with hatred, the light fading in her eyes as she melted into the floor. Her lips had moved in a swift curse, one that wouldn’t activate until he himself sunk into the soup of the Styx and then reemerged. She mouthed those threats, punishments, humiliations, every ghastly, reprehensible act she’ll make Zagreus endure and more because he did so much worse by her. </p>
<p>And now he must endure. After all, he has a debt to be paid. Zagreus won’t tell her that he prefers it this way. </p>
<p>Megaera hauls him like a petulant child, a misbehaving charge, her grip tight enough on his chiton that he knows it will tear. </p>
<p>It does tear as she hurls him through his doorless bedroom. The force and speed are enough for him to lose his footing, and on his virgin legs, weak from his journey of being stitched back together from dismemberment in the crisp underbrush of Elysium, he stumbles. Knocks his knee into the floor that hurts enough to have him shout. It would’ve shattered if he hadn’t invested in that plush rug. He had to: the rock beneath is so cold. </p>
<p>She towers over him, her snarl so telling it makes his nerves fray.</p>
<p>“Megaera, I’m sorry―”</p>
<p>“Don’t even try,” she barks. Even Zagreus knows his apology isn’t genuine. “Strip.”</p>
<p>Zagreus only bothers with the parts that hide what she wants. But, there’s a grip on his wrist that pauses him. “Everything. Quickly.”</p>
<p>He bares himself. Megaera doesn’t even look at him. Instead, she inspects the knick-knacks on his shelves with bored dissatisfaction and, when he’s discarded even his laurels, Megaera gestures towards the Scrying Pool. In a sanitized tone, she commands, “Stand there.”</p>
<p>“There?” Zagreus does a double-take. That’s not his bed. At all. It’s a far cry from the usual; him face-down on his bedspread soaking his pillows through with drool and tears, spread open and pliant for her. This is new. It both confuses and delights him.</p>
<p>“I’m not repeating myself.”</p>
<p>The Scrying Pool glows as if backlit by brazen, glorious sunlight. The very Sun that mollifies Zagreus when he breaks free, warming him unlike any magma pit he’s ever suffered through. In the soft candlelight, he sees layers beneath his glum reflection in the water. There are memories, shatters of moments that bleed together into an unknowable fog that he can barely discern when and how, and where. Numbskulls gnashing the meat of his calves as he fails to dodge. Gorgons ripped by a dozen bullets before they can corrupt his soft skin into frigid stone. Brightswords catch Zagreus only by his laurels and ribboning them to shreds. Attempt after attempt after success after failure. Rinse and repeat, but he always ends up exactly where he started.</p>
<p>His new body doesn’t have any scars. There is the achey start of a bruise on his knee, but that’s all. Surrounding him is stillness and silence. He notices everything in the rippling surface, soft unintelligible whispers cloying to be heard from its depths, but never understood.</p>
<p>“Don’t ignore me.”</p>
<p>A harsh crack rips across his naked back. Surprised agony pulls from his lips as Zagreus faces her, whip brandished in hand. When did she―? He must’ve been pulled in, distracted by the water and all it contains. He knows she doesn’t want to hear his excuses, so he offers none.</p>
<p>Megaera smirks at him and trails her nails down the bloom of his new welt, dropping her whip to the floor. He hisses, leaning upon his toes in a futile attempt to add distance. Doesn’t work. Zagreus keens through his nose as she claws up the nape of his neck, over vertebrae, the part of his body that somehow always has him shiver. His arms pimple from the rush. She knows how that makes him feel. She does it again before traveling to his hair, brushing through in a fakeout of tenderness before she almost yanks a healthy patch out by the root.</p>
<p>“You’re sick,” she huffs into his ear, baring his throat to the Olympians above. “No one would believe me if I told them Prince Zagreus licked his hands clean of my blood.”</p>
<p>Why did he do it? </p>
<p>Because it felt good to kill, but what she describes is something entirely else. As he gutted her, he pulsed. He wanted Megaera so horribly. He wanted to crawl over her and map out her death-wound, perversely explore the broken ways her body no longer joined together. The falling heat of her core, the angry pounding of her dying heartbeat. Everything he did to her. His stomach tightens thinking about it, how badly he wanted to claim her like that, to enjoy her life slipping away in the sickest urge he’s ever felt.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know when he started to want these types of things.</p>
<p>“You know I desire you in every way,” is all he says, swallowing.</p>
<p>She fists his hair tighter, his body singing yes. “That’s obvious,” she hisses, playing him like a bow at its tautest. “You’re the easiest book to read.”</p>
<p>That’s a point of pride for Zagreus. He never has to explain himself. Everyone already knows what he’s doing and how he feels about it. Somehow, Megaera, who has always held him from afar, has always been able to decipher him best. </p>
<p>Zagreus is pushed down. He braces himself on the sturdy bowl of the Scrying Pool before he cracks his jaw into it, the metal lip digging uncomfortably into his belly and palms.</p>
<p>Megaera’s voice is hot wax cooling against his flesh. “You’re going to take whatever I give you.” </p>
<p>That’s when she presses inside him. </p>
<p>Blunt, hot, cruel—everything Megaera embodies in one stroke, filling him before he has the chance to scream. Zagreus buckles, his weight doubling the pressure in his gut, his nose dipping past the surface.</p>
<p>She wouldn’t—</p>
<p>The first time he died, the first time he remembers at least, he had just learned to walk. Ripping down tapestries in the House, his squeaky laughter echoing through the space with something he wouldn’t notice was missing until recently. </p>
<p>Zagreus had been playing by the Styx, marveling in its honeyed heat between his pudgy fingers. Comforting, familiar. Safe. It felt so safe to loom over the edge, to trace patterns that stayed briefly before melting back into tantalizing smoothness.</p>
<p>There had been a sudden stirring, a bubbling in the Pool. Something was there and it frightened Zagreus enough that he lost his balance on his fragile legs and fell face-first into the thick water. It had been just a Shade but he had already sealed his fate. No matter how much of the Styx he spat out it wouldn’t stop flooding his mouth, his child lungs, swallowing his misunderstanding and naivety and everything he held true. It didn’t matter how much he struggled, he kept sinking. Sunk down and dead before anyone, especially his Father sitting at his desk in plain view of everything, even knew. </p>
<p>They only knew when the Pool vomited him back up, new and fresh and sticky, sobbing in the hiccups of air that had been stolen from him.</p>
<p>He’s underwater again. Different water, but below the surface all the same. Because of his stupidity, his childishness, water sloshes against his eardrums because he never learns. Megaera holds his skull steady and still, grinding deep into the tight clench of his desperate body. She’s so wet, so thick, nudging into every one of his soft spots. Zagreus whines as the sensation shoots up his spine, air escaping him in thick bubbles popping just a breath away above. </p>
<p>It’s not long until Megaera pulls him up. Zagreus gasps, spitting water out of his mouth in an unseemly drool as she establishes an aggressive rhythm. She secures him with her hold, only letting him fall when he needs to. Megaera guides his head like the reign of some beast, scrunching muscles and popping joints. He can’t say he hates it, the brutality of it.</p>
<p>Weak moans filter through clenched teeth. It hurts. But so deliciously, so wonderfully painful he can’t help himself. Megaera sneers behind him, derisive jabs tickling the shell of his ear as she buries her entirety in him, deep and deeper each time. Fuck. She spears into him like she owns him, a new angle that has his eyelids fluttering. He feels how much he’s dripping between his legs, face aflame from how quickly, how violently she riles him up.</p>
<p>“Pathetic.”</p>
<p>His stomach flips from the insult. Zagreus has a response on his tongue before it's washed away by the Scrying Pool. He seals off his lungs to prevent the water from clogging his throat, but it’s hard. Hard when the wrath of a Fury rips into him, wringing him for every bit of pleasure she can out of his body. Megaera holds his head below the water and flushes her hips into his, slick slick slick thrusts into his sweltering skin.</p>
<p>It feels so fucking good.</p>
<p>Zagreus almost blacks out this time. Megaera must feel the drop in his blood pressure, the random twitches in his limbs because she rips him back up. “Don’t you fucking <i>dare.</i>”</p>
<p>The air hurts his burning lungs but it doesn’t stop him from being greedy with it. </p>
<p>“Your limit is a joke,” Megaera growls into the salt of his hairline. “You never could take what you could dish out.” Her words cut in tandem with every one of her strokes and Zagreus gags on water and spit. He’s so hard. It’s like Dionysus is consuming him with his fog, he’s so bloody high.</p>
<p>Zagreus shudders when she switches the angle, something aggressive and drastically sharp he almost begs her to stop. His toes curl into the rug as he struggles not to scream through the onslaught. He starts to choke on his sobs again but Megaera hates it and throws him face-first into the coolness below. Into red swirls, into a muddy color that resembles blood. Tastes like blood, like the iron of a fatigued sword. He swallows it down, snorting through his stinging nose, starving for it. </p>
<p>She yanks Zagreus up. Surfacing, just enough for a breath he doesn’t want. Enough for his exhale to warble as she rams into his shuddering guts, pushes him closer to the edge without actually letting him come, over and over again.</p>
<p>Megaera, please—</p>
<p>Submerged. The water burns his sinus passages. Watery mucus trails from his nose into his mouth, wet hacking preventing him from satisfying his instinct to breathe. Breathe before she—</p>
<p>His skull plunges down. Again. Megaera makes a sound, fuzzy to his waterlogged ears as she jams herself into him just right, just the way it weakens his legs, forcing his grip harsher into the lip of the metal pool. Megaera is relentless, fucking him the way he likes. The way only she can, rough and merciless and just perfect enough for him to grow dependent on. The wrench inside his body reduces him to nothing, nothing that death can only fix.</p>
<p>But, not yet.</p>
<p>She shows him mercy, something she vowed not to. And yet, Megaera still lets him up again only a moment later, his heart faltering, his nerves spiking. Zagreus throws up bile as he attempts to choke the water out of him. Megaera never slows down. She fucks him harder, more frenzied, shallow, forcing his hips to meet hers on every thrust. Her grip on his hair hurts, hurts so bad it goes numb as he tries to get the air in before she fucks it out of him. Megaera, please, please—</p>
<p>Please don’t stop.</p>
<p>But really, what did he do to deserve her wrath? How did he end up here? Not even just now, but the times before? Allowing her to kill him, as she promised, but why? What does it mean to keep this up? He’s supposed to escape. She’s supposed to stop him. This arrangement is something more that neither of them has ever explicitly explained.</p>
<p>
  <i>Why?</i>
</p>
<p>All of this torture, Zagreus realizes as his stomach grows with swallowed water, is simply an exchange. Megaera simply seeks a completed transaction. A kill returned with one in kind. </p>
<p>It’s only fair.</p>
<p>Light dissolves from his vision, the glow of the Pool slipping away. Zagreus has never felt more at peace. Saved again by darkness, something he’s never been afraid of. He knows that darkness. It’s with him in his most fragile moments, stealing his lucidity and cradling him in the most loving silence. He succumbs to it, completely, and lets it fill into his every capillary and hollow bone.</p>
<p>Then Megaera shudders against him, the sting of her nails biting into overworked nerves as she stills. Zagreus gurgles helplessly, the bubbles framing his threadbare vision as she twitches against his unresponsive weight. He hopes she feels as good as he feels now.</p>
<p>The next time Megaera pulls him up, Zagreus never dives back down.</p>
<p>But he does to the floor. </p>
<p>Megaera throws him away from herself. The crash stirs him back into his skin and suddenly he is sodden and uncomfortable, choking up everything in his belly and lungs all over his carpet. Zagreus, bare, grovels at her feet as he clings to a lifeline he didn’t expect to receive, especially not from her.</p>
<p>She looks down on him as he remains very much alive. He just blinks up at her, in a pool of his own sick and croaks. “Why?”</p>
<p>Megaera ignores him as she fixes her clothing, preparing herself to leave.</p>
<p>“Megaera—you can’t—“</p>
<p>She can’t <i>what?</i> Leave him here? It’s his own fucking bedroom. But it’s not that. He’s never been pushed away, never had any neglect feel so final. Zagreus has so much to offer, whether it's his time, his life, his privilege, his heart. He’s given so much throughout his life, but not once has he ever been denied like this.</p>
<p>She should’ve just let him die, like all the times before. </p>
<p>When he’s on the verge of composing himself, only then does Megaera spare him a glance from the doorway leading into the House. “Clean yourself up, Zagreus. You look awful.”</p>
<p>It’s hard to discern how long has passed before he picks himself up off the floor. Rinse and repeat. After all, she’s expecting him out there again. And as always, Zagreus owes her his best.</p>
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